This Is the End
by Beloved-the-Fool
Summary: This is my entry for Common Flower's fanfic challenge! This is for you, whathobertie! All others, do please feel free to read and review! :)


**A/N: This one-shot is for Common Flower's fiction challenge. I was lucky enough to receive whathobertie's title/photo combo. I hope I did it justice and that she will be pleased with the result.**

* * *

**This is the end.**

* * *

_The sky begins where the ocean ends. Show me the sky above the rain._

* * *

_This is the end,_ he thinks.

Professional credibility, about to be shot to hell. Career at the Pentagon, almost undoubtedly over. Years of study and research, years of his life, his work…just wasted? And for what? The rash actions of others, something entirely beyond his control. That's the real pisser, isn't it? And here he stands at the door to The End. _G. Foster, Staff Psychologist, DHRAD. _Foster. So that's to be his executioner's name, is it? Right, then.

On we go.

This is the end.

But that end proves to be a new beginning.

* * *

_This is the end,_ he thinks.

They had never been right for each other. Not really. She was not The One for him; he was not The One for her. Still, they'd tried to make a go of it. Tried to be a couple. Tried to be a family, mainly for their daughter's sake. And it worked…for awhile, it worked. Until it didn't. She wasn't blameless, but neither was he. She had doubts, fears, stray thoughts. We all do. But then, he saw more than most. He was barraged by things most people easily overlook. And he magnified _everything_, so that it all seemed so much worse than it otherwise might've been. They'd been destined to fail from the start. She hasn't been able to be herself with him because he sees too much, sees things that aren't even there. He hasn't been able to be himself with her because she doesn't see the world the way he does; she doesn't understand him at all.

And so it ends.

But that, too, is a new beginning.

* * *

_This is the end, _he thinks.

They might already be too late. Gillian could already be…

No. Not possible.

Why isn't Reynolds driving faster? Nevermind they're doing upwards of 80 MPH inside the city. It isn't fast enough. It's been hours since Jenkins passed instructions to his protégé. If anything has happened to Gillian, Cal will gladly go to prison for the rest of his natural life; because in this moment, he knows without a doubt that he will tear Jenkins limb from limb with his bare hands and dance in his remains if…

And there she is, lying on the pavement with a shadowy figure hunched over her as the car's headlights cast the scene in stark relief. For a moment, time stands still. Cal cannot tear his eyes away from the frozen tableau. Then, like a startled deer, the attacker is running. Cal is out of the car before Reynolds has it stopped. _Too late! _is all he can think. _We're too late!_

This is the end…

_Dear God,_ he prays, _let me die, too…_

But she struggles in his arms and then burrows into his chest. She is battered and bruised, shaken but alive.

So it ends, but well.

* * *

_This is the end, _he thinks.

Cal almost had the guy talked into laying down the gun and walking out. So close. If only those uniforms hadn't turned up on the doorstep. Bloody awful timing, that was. Just set the guy off all over again. Re-lit the short fuse. Oh, he was a right powder keg, this one. And he was about to blow. Cal knew it. The guy was telling the God's-honest truth when he said he'd pull the trigger. This is how Cal's life would end. He wouldn't even get to tell Emily goodbye, wouldn't get to hug his little girl one last time. Watching his beloved Gillian cry as she pleads for his life…it's more than he can handle. He will die never having told her how much she means to him, how much he loves her. He would never hold her in his arms again. Never kiss her. Never make love with her. This is the end.

But then Gillian and Reynolds and Loker and Torres…his people…_his friends_…they come through. And suddenly, it's over.

And he tries to put it behind him with liquid courage, a young body, and warm honey.

But that ending isn't the _right_ one.

The _right_ ending is another beginning of sorts.

Separate beds.

The same roof.

* * *

_This is the end, _he thinks.

How many times is it now that he's died and come back tonight? Two? Three? He's drowning again. Suffocating and drowning, wet cloth pressing against his face. His lungs are screaming for the air they are denied. It hurts in the strangest way. Sharp, like being cut – only from the inside. And heavy. So heavy. Like being pressed down, crushed. And all goes black. This is the end.

Searing, burning pain as air rips into his lungs. The mouth of his twisted oppressor covers his through the waterlogged cloth. "Welcome back, Dr. Lightman. Let's go for a drive now. I have the perfect spot picked out for you."

But somehow, justice prevails; he doesn't die. This isn't the end.

And that bastard owes him $200.

* * *

_This is the end, _he thinks.

Dave.

Dave Burns.

Dave bloody Burns.

That's not even the plonker's real name, but Gillian doesn't seem to care. He's lying his _arse_ off, and Gillian doesn't bloody well seem to care. He's wrong for her. All wrong. Wrong in every possible sense of the word. Why can't she see that? She should be with someone else. Someone who would never lie to her about who he is. Someone who would never lie about his real name, even if it _was_ something absurd like Caldonius or something. Someone who – while about as far from perfect as it was humanly possible to be – would love her with his entire being and would do anything, give up anything, sacrifice anything _just_ for the privilege of loving her.

But she wasn't with that someone. She loved someone else. Someone who called himself Dave. She loved him because no one else had given her a reason not to.

And so.

Or maybe not.

Thank you, Little Moon. Thank you, Captain Bloody America.

"Admit it: you want her."  
"Yes I do. In the _worst_ possible way."

That's right, you wanker; I can give her what you can't: the truth. Even if I can only give it in a roundabout way.

And just like that, Burns (or Marco or whoever the hell he is today) is out, and Cal has a second (or twenty-second) chance.

* * *

_This is the end, _she thinks.

He's pissed. She knew he would be before she ever did it, but she did it anyway. She knew he'd be pissed; she knows him too well. Freezing the company assets, it was like poking the bear. Like whacking the bee hive with a stick. Like kicking the sleeping dog.

And yet.

And yet she hadn't done it to provoke. She'd done it to make a point. He _had_ to realise his actions didn't _only _affect him. They're partners; they're in this together, so his actions affect her. But now he's _so _pissed that he's threatening to cut ties with her. Seriously? After all they've been through? After all the crap she's put up with from _him_? And now _he's_ one to call it quits?

He is serious, though.

And off he goes on the arm of yet _another_ woman.

Because Gillian has never made her position clear. She has never staked her claim.

So she'll watch him go, on the arm of another woman…in the arms of another woman…to the bed of another woman. And she'll accept the change, just to keep him in her life. She'll choke back the pain and put on a smile. Just so long as this does not end, him in her life.

But the dark water closes in, and the sky seems so far away.

She feels like she will always be alone.

* * *

_This is the end, _he thinks.

No more pretending. No more wearing this mask around her; no more hiding from her. No reason to, really. He's afraid. Terrified. But fear is healthy, right? If that's the case, he should be fit as a fiddle then.

He is so sodding scared…scared into inactivity. Immobilized.

What's he afraid of? What's the worst that could happen?

She could slap him. Well, he's had worse.

She could laugh at him, not take him seriously. That would certainly sting more than a slap.

She could walk away, turn and walk right out of his life.

That, right there. That would be the _absolute worst._

Better that she should kill him. Better that she would rip out his barely-beating, wounded heart with her bare hands and crush it along with his will to go on.

_This is the end,_ he thinks. Because he really _is_ suffocating this time. She is his oxygen, and without her there's just no point in going through the motions of trying to breathe.

So the question is this: risk and reward. Is the reward worth the risk?

The odds are the worst in the house because he can't read her, can't predict the outcome, can't stack the deck in his favour.

Roulette, indeed.

It's a gamble.

Risk and reward.

Is the reward worth the risk?

He knows the answer is yes.

If he loses, he will lose big.

But if he wins? Jackpot. The jackpot to end them all and to cure the inveterate gambler once and for all.

There she is. His biggest gamble. His biggest risk. His biggest reward. His roulette. His love. His _everything._

And she smiles. And he decides.

_This is the end,_ he thinks. _The sky begins where the ocean ends; I will show her the sky above the rain._


End file.
